The underwater city of Willen Cove was probably more populated than the land version, but was much more sprawled out, less of a city than a simple town center with various houses and a few shops strewn about.  Not human-type houses, naturally, but what merfolk tended to use, almost more like pods.  The majority of the town was oceanids, with a few water nymphs and smaller merfolk shifters who preferred their shifted forms over their human forms.

I didn’t know the merfolk of Willen Cove very well.  That was a good thing, to me.

When I’d first joined a merfolk community at 17, after finally leaving my human early years behind, I’d learned some harsh realities.  I’d discovered that my magic level was low enough that, to most merfolk, I was considered weak, pathetic – generally, a waste of space.

Before going there, I’d been confident, quick to smile, fast on my feet, witty, and outgoing.  That had all changed soon after arriving.  I’d learned that, to my own kind, I was essentially barely better than a human.  In some ways, worse.  I wasn’t really welcome, wasn’t one of them, and there were those who made certain I knew where my place in merfolk society was.

By the time I’d left four years later, I had changed.  Cold, distant, standoffish.  My iciness was my only defense against allowing people to know anything about me and about how much they got to me.  I couldn’t hide my magic level – or lack thereof – but I could hide my responses.  I could stand there, cold, a frozen smile on my face as if I didn’t care about their words.

I didn’t let people in anymore.  Humans were always a risk, given the whole supernatural thing and, in particular, the merfolk tendency to disappear into the ocean for long stretches, but merfolk…merfolk weren’t home, either.  I kept myself away from others, isolated, politely engaging in conversation when forced but otherwise I existed within my cold walls, the only things still holding me together.

The twins, of course, bypassed the walls simply because they knew me before those walls existed.  They didn’t see who I was now, they hadn’t yet – well, they’d seen some, but it hadn’t seemed to dawn on them that my behavior towards them in my female form was actually my normal behavior now.  Sure, I’d dropped the walls automatically once I’d opened up to them, but…I didn’t even know if that would last.  I wasn’t who I used to be, I wasn’t the boy they’d fallen in love with.  They didn’t know that yet, and I didn’t know how long I could hide it.

Bruce was the only other one who’d found a way inside my cold walls.  A year or so after I left my first merfolk community, he’d found me one day, sitting on a rock at the edge of the ocean, thinking bitterly about how it had stolen everything from me.  My parents, my life with the twins, my hope, my confidence – and it couldn’t even be bothered to give me much magic in return.

Bruce had caught me in a moment when my guard was down, and whether he decided we’d be friends because he felt sorry for me because I was a fairly pitiful excuse for a merfolk or whether he just felt sorry for someone so isolated, I wasn’t sure, but he had informed me we were now friends and wouldn’t let me back out of his decision.  He offered me friendship without judgment, company without restrictions.  I’d stayed briefly in Willen Cove after that, but had avoided the merfolk community for the most part because I wasn’t keen on starting the bullying again.

I had been here before, but I didn’t know much about the Elder.  However, if Bruce trusted her, that should be good enough for me.

I swam through the door and hesitated, searching the large hall for a moment.  Most of the merfolk ignored me, but I spotted the sign for the Elder’s office and swam in that direction.

A voice told me to enter when I knocked and I quietly slipped into the room.

“Ah.”  The Elder looked up at me, her face somewhere between confused and politely concerned.  “You’re Bruce’s friend, aren’t you?  Remind me of your name again?”

“Morgan.”

“Ah, right, yes, of course.  What can I do for you, Morgan?”

“It’s about protection marks,” I explained awkwardly, “I need – I have people I need to protect, but I don’t have the magical power to do it myself.”  If I hadn’t long since mastered hiding my emotions, I’d probably have blushed badly at that admission.  Yes, of course she knew already, but it was still different to admit it out loud.

“Bruce thought you might have a way for me to, I don’t know, approach it from a different angle?  Try another approach to the mark to get the magic to work?  Otherwise, I was wondering if you knew of anyone who might be willing to protect them for me – but not be required to follow up on it, of course,” I was quick to explain.  Merfolk wouldn’t want the responsibility of actually looking after someone else’s human.  No one really wanted that.

The Elder looked at me thoughtfully.  “Humans, I take it?”

“Well, yes.”  Did anyone else ever get protected?  Of course it was humans.

“And you grew up amongst humans, didn’t you?  You were sent to live with them after your parents died?”

I paused, not really sure how this related, but it was rude to question an Elder, so.  “Yes.  Um, these humans are actually friends from then, they recently – reentered my life and due to a series of events, they found out about me.”

“I see.”  She folded her hands together.  “I’m afraid we don’t have a way to help you,” she told me, my heart sinking at her words, “but you may be able to help yourself.”

My heart stopped its descent.  “Help…myself?  How so?”

The Elder waved slightly in my direction.  “Your magic levels are low, I’m sure you know this – but did you know the reason why?”

Why?  Wasn’t it just…that I was weaker than other merfolk?

She seemed amused at my expression.  “I’m going to assume that means no.  But the answer is fairly simple – your bond with the ocean isn’t strong enough.  I’ve seen in happen before, often with those raised on land instead of in the sea.  An unfortunate occurrence, really.”  She sighed as if struck by heavy memories.  “You’re still not part of the ocean, as it were.  As a result, you can’t draw on its power and your magic is, therefore, weak.”

My brows furrowed.  If this was the case, why hadn’t the first merfolk community told me that?  Well, of course they couldn’t be bothered – not when my existence itself annoyed them.

“The ocean is my home,” I said slowly.

“Of course it is,” her tone was soothing.  “But you’re still holding back.  Hesitant.  You’re still bound to the land, something is holding you back.”

Holding me back?  I’d spent most of the last 10 years underwater, what could be –

“Is it the humans?”  The Elder asked gently.  “Are they what is holding you to the land?  This entire time?”

I swallowed, suddenly feeling cold.  She couldn’t be suggesting what I thought.  “They are important to me, but I did leave them, I went to the ocean, I tried to learn protection marks.”

“Ah.”  She sat back, nodding as if I’d just confirmed her theory.  “You still planned to return to them eventually?”  At my reluctant nod, she gave me a kind, if somewhat condescending, smile.  “Your ties to them are holding you to the land.  You haven’t yet let go of being human enough to embrace what you truly are.  As long as you’re holding yourself back by clinging to them, you will never truly have power.”

No.  This…was the opposite of help.  “So…you’re saying the only way I can gain enough power to protect them is by letting them go?  Then what is the point of having the power to even do that?”

She sighed deeply.  “There are ways to solve the issue, ones that solve your problem with the ocean at the same time.  You know what I’m talking about?”

I did.  She meant erasing their memories.  If they forgot about me, they’d forget about what I told them about supernaturals, and they’d no longer be in danger.  And if I allowed myself to be erased from their memories…then I would truly be letting go of them, as well.  Irreversibly.

“That’s the opposite of what I want,” I whispered, feeling my heart constrict and my breathing come a little harder as I stared at the floor.

“Sometimes what we want…just isn’t possible.”  The Elder’s tone was compassionate.  “They are in danger because of you, and you will never be one with the sea as long as they are in your life.  There is only one outcome that is best for, well, everyone involved.  All others lead to misfortune.”

I could have sworn my heart froze.  Pumping, still, but frost began to form around it, ice creeping in at the edges.

“Why don’t you take one of the spare rooms for traveling merfolk,” she suggested, “and think it over?  I think if you’re willing to admit it to yourself, there’s really only one possible good outcome here.  Give your friends a last act of kindness and let them go, let them be safe in their own world.  They don’t belong in ours.”

Her words echoed in my head as I swam, almost in a trance, to one of the small rooms for merfolk like me who weren’t part of the community.  A simple round room, mostly bare, but with appropriate furnishings for eating and sleeping.

I found myself lying on the bed, tears not quite breeching my eyes as I faced the inevitable.

For a moment, I thought I’d been offered everything I’d always wanted, and it was within my reach.  For just a moment, I dared to dream.

But now that was all dashed.  There was never going to be a way to protect them.  I doubted letting go of them would give me any magic – I was too bitter at the ocean about this.  About my entire life, really.  I could never be “one” with the ocean when I resented it for costing me the twins.  Costing me a future I so desperately wanted but could never have.

I closed my eyes, and felt a crack split my heart as I realized the Elder was right.  For their own sake, I had to let them go – but this time, in such a way that they wouldn’t keep hunting for me, wouldn’t be in danger because of what I was and what I told them.

I was going to have to erase myself from their lives.